December 2013 mindful 49
Clockwise from far
left: Employees enjoy
a minute of silence
before meetings;
an idea board at
the offices of Eileen
Fisher; massages are
made available to all
employees during
working hours; a map
of the world made of
cloth remnants; quiet
is worked right into
this office’s design.
also works here—like mother, like son.)
Ma ny articles of clothing will be tagged
and find their way to the Lab Store and
two other outlets in Westchester. Some
will be donated to shelters, and some are
too threadbare for use. Their fate is under
consideration. A second collection center
in Seattle now supplies a Green Eileen
store there, and more outlets are planned.
“Sales increased almost 50% this
year,” Campbell tells me. “It took 33
months for Green Eileen to ea rn its first
million, a year for the second million,
and we just hit the third million after
eight months. That’s a lot of upcycling!”
Eileen Fisher has known hard times.
Hurricane Sandy inundated the com-
pany’s headquarters, which is still
being restored, but Fisher is philosoph-
ical about what was lost in the flood.
“It’s just stuff,” she said at the time.
The company is not immune from the
harsh world of the marketplace either.
While the desig ns are timeless, the core
Eileen Fisher customer is aging, and
that’s challenging the company to find
younger customers while still adher-
ing to the “timeless desig n” principle.
Fisher feels confident they can continue
to “make desig n that belongs to this
moment but transcends the moment”
and appeal to a new generation of cus-
tomers. There are early positive sig ns,
but only time will tell.
People who work at Eileen Fisher
generally share the company’s values and
often apply to work there for that reason,
but as the company grows, changes,
and adds new employees, it’s ma king a
robust effort to foster the culture and
help people work and live well. Yvette
Ja rreau, director of leadership, learning
and development, described to me the
recent evolution of Eileen Fisher. “About
a decade ago, we had roughly 400 people
who had grown embryonically a round
Eileen. People were doing multiple
roles—when you’re small, you wear a lot
of hats. Now there’s more complexity to
manage.”
As the company grew to a thousand
employees, Susan Schor, the chief culture
officer, star ted a program to create more
orga nization while maintaining collabo-
rative va lues and to help people develop
the leadership skills they need to ma ke
that work. While the conventional man-
ager takes pride in knowing the answers,
Fisher advocates not knowing, which
“makes it easier to learn from others.”
Leadership at Eileen Fisher is looser,
more open to ambiguity and uncer-
tainty. “It’s always moving and chang-
ing.” Jarreau tells me. “ We say, ‘We’re
in the river.’
“Managing ambiguity is a tough thing
for many people, who tend to want things
more black and white. We don’t rely on
a lot of policies and rules here, which
is challenging. Our thrust is to help →